Return of Castles and Cauldrons
by militaryhistory
Summary: A fix fic for one of the most deservedly poorly-received Adventures in Odyssey episodes to ever be produced. Rated K-plus for mild violence, discussion of dark spirituality and its potential negative consequences, religious themes, and discussion of events occurring during and immediately after World War II. Complete.
1. Part I: 1990

It was ten-thirty in the morning at Whit's End on a Monday in the spring, and while normally this would have meant that Connie Kendall would have been at school along with the shop's usual clientele, it was graduation exam day at Odyssey High School, which meant that she didn't have to go in until noon, since she'd passed the test the first time. Things had been a little crazy over the weekend, and so she'd asked Whit if she could come in that morning and catch up on some of the more paperwork-y things that she'd been unable to do during her usual hours.

Whit had been more than a little surprised at her offer—she really didn't see why—but had agreed that she could if she wanted and to just leave a note telling him how many hours she'd worked when she left.

So when she heard the bell ring as she was doing inventory on the ice cream she kicked herself mentally for failing to lock the door, and looked up to tell whoever was coming in that the place was closed, but immediately changed gears when she saw who had come in.

"Mr. Barclay!" she exclaimed, then noticed that he wasn't alone. "And you are?" she said to the young man who, she thought, would have been good-looking if he didn't look like he hadn't slept in three days, at which point she noticed that Mr. Barclay had an expression on his face that she'd never seen before. It was…kind of scary looking, honestly.

"Hello, Connie," he said, almost curtly, "Is Whit in?"

"Yeah, sure, he let me in this morning. He's upstairs talking with Mr. Walton." She paused. "What's wrong?"

"Don't worry about it. Could you…go upstairs and tell Whit that I think Len's in trouble?"

"No problem," Connie replied. As she left, she suddenly realized that she'd never gotten the young man's name.

* * *

"So you really think that's necessary?"

"Trust me, Whit, if there's one thing I know it's windows. And I'm telling you, that replacement you got was from a bad batch."

"I'll take that under advisement. Now…" there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?"

"It's Connie, Whit. Mr. Barclay's here with someone. He says Len's in trouble." She frowned slightly, and Whit knew she was about to remember something he'd rather she not. "Hey, wasn't that Jimmy's cousin who came and went a few months ago?"

"I'll be right down, Connie." Whit turned to Bernard. "I'm sorry, but I think something urgent just came up."

Bernard waved his hand. "It's alright, it's alright," he said, "just don't blame me if the sun happens to hit that pane just right and fries some napkins crispier than my cousin Janice's chicken."

"Don't worry, I won't," Whit replied with a slight, but somewhat forced, chuckle.

Bernard looked at him searchingly. "Is there something I need to know, Whit? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I just might have, Bernard. I just might have."

* * *

When Whit came down the stairs from his corner office, Bernard having gone to the attic to clean the windows there, he saw a very anxious-looking George Barclay standing near the ice cream counter with a young man he'd never seen before. He wasn't sure if he liked the look of him—skinny jeans, a grungy t-shirt, tattoos, and piercings—but he took a closer look and realized that whoever this kid was that he needed help, and badly, rebellious or not.

He also noticed that Connie was still in the room.

"Hello, George," he said as he walked up to his friend and stuck out his hand. "What's happening?"

"Whit," he replied, his voice slightly ragged, as he took Whit's hand to shake it while beckoning the young man he was with over, "let me introduce you to a friend of my nephew's. Andrew, meet John Avery Whittaker."

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you, Mr. Whittaker."

"Please, call me Whit. Would the two of you like to talk privately?"

"Yes, please."

"Of course. Just follow me back. Oh, Connie?"

"Yes, Whit?"

"When you finish the ice cream inventory, leave a note on the counter and I'll order what we need later. And then, could you look at the toppings? I think we might be running low. Leave me a note on that too, please."

"Sure thing."

They quickly walked back into the train room, Whit turning on the light as he came in and George shutting the door behind the trio. Whit turned to speak to Andrew, but paused when he saw the look of awe on his face as he gazed upon the massive train set.

"Who did all this?" he asked. "They're an artist."

"Oh, just some of the kids and I. I'm glad you like it. Now, why do you think Len Barclay's in trouble?"

Andrew shook his head. "I'm not worried about him being in trouble. I just want to know if he's alive."

"Why would you be worried about that?"

"Because the members of the Castles and Cauldrons group we were in are dying."

Whit blinked. "Dying."

Andrew's head bobbed. "Dying. The police say they're all suicides, but I _knew_ those people. They wouldn't…"

"Slow down, Andrew. Start from the beginning."

"Okay. Sure." He took a deep breath, and his next words nearly tumbled over each other. "It all started about a week ago, the day after one of our game nights. I got the paper that morning, and right there, on the front page, I saw that one of our group members, Sandy, had hanged herself that night."

"That's certainly troubling. I'm sorry."

"It gets worse. Two days later, one of the guys, Melvin, put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The next day, another girl, Melissa, sat in her garage with the car running. Her dad found her and dragged her out, but she's in a coma and they don't expect her to come out of it." He swallowed. "Then, day before yesterday, another one of the guys, Bill, jumped off the balcony of his tenth-story apartment. Then, yesterday…" his voice trailed off.

"What happened yesterday, Andrew?" Whit asked gently.

"Yesterday I drove over to Gina's house. She was another one of the girls in our group. She was smart, funny, good-looking. She loved life." Whit nodded. "She'd sliced her wrists open."

At this point Andrew looked utterly distraught. "It didn't make any sense. None of them wanted to commit suicide. After Sandy died we were all calling each other, seeing how everyone was holding up. I mean, we were grief-stricken, but no one said anything about how they couldn't live without her. Then Melvin, and the others…And that was when I felt it."

"Felt what?"

"A little voice, in the back of my brain. It said…things. Things that made me wonder…made me wonder if maybe my friends hadn't made that decision on their own." He looked at Whit, eyes haunted. "And then I remembered Len, and that his parents had sent him here after there had been…incidents, and that he'd never come back to the group. So I drove here, and asked if anyone knew where I could find the Barclays. I don't know what's going on. I nearly drove off two bridges getting here."

Whit winced. He really should have done something besides just getting Len back to his pastor when he saw that Board of Talisman. He'd hoped that things hadn't gotten that far, and he'd allowed himself to believe that that was the only one.

But they had, it wasn't, and now he needed to fix his mistake. Quickly. He also raised his estimate of Andrew up a notch. Maintaining self-control under that kind of pressure was...impressive.

"George, do you have anything to add?"

George shook his head. "Nothing. Just that I haven't gotten any phone calls about Len except to say that he's doing much better."

"Thanks. If you don't mind, I'll take this from here."

"Are you sure about this, Whit?"

"George, this is not something you need to be involved in. Trust me. I'll let you know when this is settled."

"Whit, what is going on?"

"Something I'd hoped I'd buried a long time ago."

* * *

After sending George back to the office, calling Tom Riley and asking him to look after the shop for a few days, then locking the front door and telling Connie to close it behind her when she left and that he needed to go away for a couple of days and fending off her questions, Whit climbed into his car as Andrew got in the passenger's side.

"So, Andrew," Whit asked as he started the car, "How did you and Len get into Castles and Cauldrons, anyway?"

Andrew sighed. "Look, I was never really popular back in high school, all right? I wasn't athletic, I didn't have a lot of money, and I wasn't really good at school. So I hung out with some other kids like me. Then someone who a couple of us knew introduced us to D&D." Andrew looked at him. "I don't know what you've heard about it, but it's not like we're doing magic or anything. Okay, yeah, our characters might be, but for us it's just like 'Cast Fireball!' followed by a die roll and the Dungeonmaster saying what happens."

"Dungeonmaster?"

"He's the guy who runs the game session."

"Still, I'm not really comfortable with the idea of engaging in that sort of thing."

Andrew shrugged. "It was all good fun. It gave us all a chance to escape from our miserable teenage lives for an evening." He paused. "For most of them, that was enough. But it wasn't quite enough for me. Well, we heard about a con in Chicago, and so we all decided to go."

Whit was confused. "I'm guessing that you don't mean you drove all the way to Chicago to see people get cheated out of their money."

Andrew laughed, in a shaky sort of way. "No, sorry. It's a convention, we just call it a con for short. Anyway, we got there, had a great time, and that's when I found out about LARPing."

"LARPing?"

"Live-action roleplaying. It's like tabletop gaming, but you're actually acting it out. Instead of saying 'My character attacks the goblin' and rolling dice, you're actually swinging the sword yourself."

Whit broke his eyes away from the road long enough to give Andrew a skeptical look, and was met by a shrug. "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. I finally thought I'd found what I was looking for. Yeah, in real life I was just an average guy and kind of a loser, but there I could be somebody. Somebody important, you know? Well, one of the other guys from our group came with me, and we ended up LARPing in addition to our weekly game nights."

"How many people…LARP?"

"Not that many. Maybe one in twenty tabletop gamers? And there's not that many of those. I think that at the con after that year we had about two hundred people involved in the LARP, and players were coming in from as far away as Sioux City and Cincinnati."

"So this was where you ran into Castles and Cauldrons?"

"Yes. It was at last year's con in Chicago. The scheduled Gamemaster for the LARP had to cancel at the last minute—the conrunners all said that he got really sick last minute. But he recommended this guy named Niall Hepburn to substitute for him."

"And then what happened?"

"It was amazing. He was a real storyteller, you know? You almost felt like you were there when you listened to his voice. He took somebody else's story and took it in the direction they would have wanted, but made it his. It was the best campaign any of us had ever played."

Whit nodded. He'd heard that story before.

"Well, after the game was over, but before we left, he came up to me and Mike—he was the other guy from the D&D club I was in—and said that we'd impressed him with how well we'd done, that we were some of the guys capable of appreciating this new game he'd found."

"Castles and Cauldrons."

Andrew nodded. "Yeah. He made it sound like it was a step beyond the usual LARPing. And I wanted that. I told him I wanted in. Mike…Mike wasn't so sure. He told Niall that he didn't have time for another gaming group, and that the LARP we were already in was about his speed. At which point Niall nodded, said that he understood, then gave me a card with directions and a date."

"So, I take it you went."

"Yeah, Mike didn't want me to. Said something about Niall just seemed…off. I blew it off, I figured he was just trying to justify cutting out. I guess I should have listened." He sighed. "That first game night was great—that was where I got to know Len. We'd met at the con, talked a little, but I couldn't say I knew the guy."

He paused. "That first night was a normal introductory game night. Well, mostly. I guess I probably should have figured out that something was a little off when half the group members were girls, though."

Whit turned in surprise. "That's not normal?"

Andrew snorted. "In most gaming groups, there's usually at most two girls, one of whom is somebody's girlfriend, usually the dungeonmaster's. Three girls, none of whom were attached to anyone? That should have told me something was up."

"But, let me guess. You were just excited to see them."

"Yeah, pretty much. And Niall's storytelling was _spellbinding._ I'd thought he was impressive at the Con; in a small group, he was awe-inspiring. You wanted to go deeper into the story." He paused. "And we did. Oh, how we did."

"What do you mean?"

"Niall was…very insistent on role-playing. You weren't allowed to break character until he announced a break. Which he did regularly, so it wasn't that bad, but sometimes…" his voice trailed off.

"Sometimes what?"

"You won't believe me."

"Try me."

"Look, I was a fighter, okay? Straight-up brawler, with a couple of talents, so I never experienced this myself, but…let me just give you an example. Melvin—his character's name was Medwin—was a cleric. His character could do all sorts of things, and I remember, it was about a month in…well, it seemed like he almost thought _he_ was doing them, y'know?"

Whit thought of something. "Wait a minute. You mentioned that that first was mostly a normal introductory game night. What was different?"

Andrew paused. "Well, the vow of secrecy was a little odd."

"Yes, Len mentioned that. I take it that isn't normal."

"It's very not normal. I've never heard of another game that required one. And then there was Niall's mentioning somebody called Shalman. Said he was the spirit of the game, or something like that. I just thought it was an attempt at immersion. He was like that. Always coming up with little twists and turns to draw you in."

"Len mentioned 'interferers'—people who would try to stop the game from being played. Did you always play in somebody's house?"

Andrew shook his head. "No. The main reason the introductory night was at Niall's place was because it was character setup night, and the fact that it's customary for parties to meet at an inn or tavern or someplace like that. Most of the time we played outdoors."

"Where?"

"Fields, forests—y'know, places where there weren't many people. We only ever actually had someone stop us from playing once, and that was because it was dark and we didn't realize that his house was only a hundred yards away, and Len got a little loud when he spellcast."

Andrew paused. "That was another weird thing. Even when LARPing, most games just have your spellcasters say 'fireball' or 'cure critical wounds.' C&C got involved, like with incantations and invocations and _everything._ "

He winced. "Should have guessed something was up, though. Niall was obsessed with people breaking in on one of the gaming sessions. Anybody mentioned that their parents or friends were even slightly worried about how we were playing, he'd just go on this massive rant."

"So, it wasn't just Len's parents, then."

"No. Len was just the youngest, so they could pack him off here. He also had the most issues with separating the game from reality, although…" his voice trailed off.

"Although?"

"Everyone was starting to have issues with that. I mean, sometimes with my old gaming group, we'd call each other by our game names, but it was just for a lark, y'know? With the C&C guys, though—it almost started feeling natural. I'd have to stop myself from calling Len Luther or Gina Gwendolyn whenever I talked to them. Len just got it worse than we did, I think because he was younger."

Whit sighed. Yes, he'd seen this all before. Andrew looked at him.

"You seem to know a lot about this, Whit. And, if you don't mind my saying, you don't look the type."

"I'm an old man, Andrew," he replied. "I've traveled the world, and been on every continent but one. If you pay attention, you learn a few things."

"Yeah, but how do you know about this stuff? Niall said Castles and Cauldrons was _his_ thing…well, I guess he could have been lying, but…"

Whit shook his head. "Castles and Cauldrons isn't the important part, Andrew. The Board of Talisman is."

"Wait, what? How do you know about the Board?"

"There's nothing new under the sun," Whit said softly. "And I can tell that you won't tell me anything else until I tell you something. So let me tell you about how I know about the Board. It all started in Europe, right after World War II…"

 **A/N: The entire idea for this fic came from one line towards the end of "Castles and Cauldrons," when Whit and George Barclay break in on Len and Jimmy. During the sequence, Whit exclaims "A Board of Talisman?!" like it's something he's seen before, which is odd, considering that he shows no sign of having known anything about _Castles and Cauldrons_ beforehand. While this was probably just bad writing (like the rest of the two-parter), I decided to go with the idea that Whit _had_ actually seen such a thing before, and knew what it was used for. Then I decided to also use it to...well, that would spoil things a little. Enjoy.**


	2. Part II: 1945

**A/N: Admiral Inglis is not really on the side of the angels, and acts and speaks accordingly. My apologies if this is a slander to the real man.**

* * *

Lieutenant Commander John Avery Whittaker sat nervously outside Admiral Inglis' office and wondered why he'd been summoned there. Rear admirals did not usually directly call midlevel officers into their offices to discuss their next assignments. But, then again, that Inglis had any interest in him at all was unusual, because he'd never been part of the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI. That his next assignment was with them was…concerning.

He was also concerned about the fact that he had a next assignment. He'd signed up for the navy right after Pearl Harbor, and hadn't mentioned anything to anyone about pursuing a career in the military. In fact, after some of what he'd seen in the Philippines and Manchuria, staying in the military was the last thing he wanted to do. Like almost everyone else who'd joined for the war, he just wanted to go home.

But instead, he was here.

He was also early, which was why he'd been sitting here for twenty minutes, slowly working himself into a nervous breakdown, which was why he was actually thankful when the door to the Admiral's office opened and he heard the occupant bark, "Come in, Commander Whittaker."

As he walked in, came to attention, and saluted, he noticed that there was somebody else in there besides Admiral Inglis, and that he didn't recognize him.

"Commander Whittaker," Inglis said. "Meet your partner on this assignment. This is Commander Shelton."

"Pleased to meet you," the latter said, and stuck out his hand.

Whit took it to shake it, but as he did he looked into the Commander's eyes and saw no life in them. This did not bode well.

The admiral spoke. "Your assignment is simple. You're going to Europe to find this man." He handed Whittaker a photograph of a man with close-cropped dark hair, round glasses, and a lean face. "His name is Nils Horner, and you need to retrieve him."

"Retrieve him, sir?"

"He was in ONI before the war. Commander Shelton worked with him."

Shelton spoke flatly. "Officially, he left the Navy and moved to Yugoslavia in 1939. In reality, he was still working for us. We needed intelligence on the state of naval affairs in the area, and he put himself in a position to get us that information. He kept sending us intelligence through the whole war, until last month. We don't know what happened to him. He has information that could compromise multiple assets in the area, and we need to know what's happened to him."

 _So why am I being assigned to this?_ Whittaker thought, but he didn't say it. Lieutenant commanders didn't question admirals about their assignments. Instead, he asked another question.

"Sir, will we be receiving any help from the OSS?"

"Those cowboys?" Inglis snorted. "This requires subtlety, and Donovan's pets don't know anything about that."

 _In other words, he's too proud to admit to them that he needs help. That's not good._

"Now, Commander Shelton. Are you ready to go?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. I imagine that Commander Whittaker may need some time, though. Are you in the Transient Officers' Quarters?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Go back there, and give them this," Inglis said as he passed over an envelope. "This says you're on temporary duty, and will be back within a week. Give it to them, and they'll hold your bags. Meet Commander Shelton at the motor pool at," he looked at his watch, "1530."

"Yes sir."

"Commander Shelton, you're dismissed. Commander Whittaker, stay a moment."

"Yes sir," the other commander replied, came to attention, saluted, and left the room.

"Commander," Inglis said to Whittaker. "There's something we need to discuss." His voice went flat. "What happened in Shanghai."

"What are you referring to, sir?"

"Don't play dumb, Commander," Inglis replied frostily. "We both know that Jap your ship was supposed to pick up died while he was in your custody. Curious, isn't it, that you were ambushed by Chinks and he was the only one who didn't make it out?"

"I had my orders, sir. And I followed them."

"Yes, I'm sure." Inglis gave him a cold stare, and Whittaker felt a little chill run through him. "The only reason you're being used for this assignment is that Commander Shelton needs backup, I've been told that you can keep your mouth shut, and I'm shorthanded right now. Dirty hands are part of this business, Commander. Everyone thinks we're safe, now that the war's over. We're not. Hard choices still have to be made, do you understand me?"

"Yes sir."

"I hope you do. Dismissed, Commander."

"Yes sir."

* * *

As Whittaker and Shelton stepped off the plane in Athens, the former couldn't help but feel a distinct sense of relief at no longer being in a small, confined space with the latter. He'd attempted to make conversation while traveling from ONI headquarters to the Naval Air Station on the Patuxent River, and the attempt not been quite rebuffed so much as absorbed, with Shelton managing never to give a straight answer to questions that Whittaker would have thought even a normal spy would have been comfortable with answering truthfully. It was somewhat unnerving, honestly, though he wasn't quite sure why, and he'd given up after a few tries.

The flight from Maryland to Bermuda hadn't been particularly long, thankfully, and the one from Bermuda to the Azores had been mostly taken up by sleeping. But the flight from the Azores to Gibraltar had been extremely uncomfortable, the one from Gibraltar to Rome more so, and the flight from there to Athens had been nearly excruciating.

As they stepped onto the tarmac of Hassani Airfield and their fellow passengers, mostly British officers, dispersed, Shelton initiated a conversation with him for the first time since they'd met.

"There's a hotel run by someone I know. It's two blocks down from the Church of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. Meet me there in two hours. It's best if we're not seen together. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Good. I'll see you there," Shelton said neutrally, then walked off.

John Avery Whittaker stood alone in the middle of the tarmac, knowing neither the local language nor customs, and wondered what on earth he was going to do for three hours.

He looked over at the terminal. Maybe he could find someone who knew where that church was.

As he walked over, he pulled a little at his collar. It wasn't particularly hot here, especially not compared to Manila, but after that plane ride it felt warm.

He took a moment to admire the view, although there wouldn't have been too much to see if it wasn't sunset. It was much like any other airbase—lots of planes, lots of people in uniforms, and few amenities. The mountains to the east were somewhat pleasant, at any rate. Then he noticed that there was still some bombing damage left, which surprised him. He knew it had been more than a year since the Germans had left Greece, but he knew precious little else about what had been going on here since.

However, the view of the setting sun to the west was gorgeous, as it slowly dropped towards the Mediterranean, and Whittaker took a moment to shade his eyes with his hands and admire the view before continuing on.

He walked into the terminal and got into the line for the information desk, which was being run by a somewhat harassed-looking British lieutenant with a crisp mustache that reminded Whittaker that he hadn't shaved in two days.

When he reached the desk, he asked politely, "How do I arrange transportation to the city, and would you happen to know where the Church of St. Dionysus the Areopagite is located?"

The lieutenant looked up sharply. "Wot?" He looked more closely at Whittaker. "Sorry, Commander. Don't see a lot of American naval officers out here. As to transport, just go to the motor pool and show them your orders, and they'll assign you a jeep. As to that church," he paused and rubbed his moustache, then looked at the time. "I don't know where it is, but Theo's shift is ending soon, he's a local, and speaks excellent English."

"Theo?"

"He's one of our local liaisons. Translator and what I believe you Americans call a fixer. In fact, you won't need to sign out a jeep at all. Theo!" he called out as he leaned back in his chair.

"Yes, Leftenant?" Whittaker heard a slightly accented voice say from behind the partition.  
"There's an American here who wants to find some sort of church for some reason. Could you take him by there when you go home?"

"Certainly, Leftenant," the voice said as the man who owned it stepped around the partition. He was swarthy and curly-haired—almost straight out of central casting, Whittaker thought, although the cheerful smile on his face wasn't entirely standard.

He stuck out his hand. "Theodosius Andronopolous, but please, call me Theo."

Whittaker took it and shook it. "Lieutenant Commander John Whittaker. Please, call me Whit."

Theo looked at the lieutenant. "Do you need me for anything else, Lieutenant Beresford?"

"Nothing, Theo," the lieutenant replied. "Have a good night."

"Do you have a vehicle, Theo?" Whittaker asked they walked out of the terminal.

"Yes, I do. Right this way, Whit," he replied, pointing to a repainted Kubelwagen.

Some of Whittaker's surprise must have shown, because Theo chuckled and explained, "The Germans left much of their equipment behind when they evacuated. So we use it while we recover from the occupation. How long are you staying here?" he continued as they climbed into the car.

"I'm not sure," Whittaker admitted. "A week or two, possibly. Maybe longer."

"Ah," Theo replied as he started the engine. "How much do you know about the situation here in Greece, Whit?"

"Very little," Whit replied as they drove towards the main gate. "All I know is that the Germans left here about a year ago and the British moved in to oversee the transition back to your own government, but the way you said that makes it sound like it's more complicated than that."

"Oh, what you said is completely true, but it's a bit incomplete. The resistance here was split into three main groups, the EAM, the EDES, and the EKKA. The EAM was Communist, and the EDES and EKKA were both republican."

"Wait, I thought the Greek government was a monarchy."

"It was," Theo said grimly. "But a few years after the Great War, royalists attempted a coup against the government. It failed, we proclaimed a republic, and we exiled the king. He returned a few years before this last war, after the royalists gained a majority in Parliament. Then, after much unrest, General Ioannis Metaxas took over the country from the elected government, and did so with the king's blessing. That was how it was when the Italians attacked, and with German help occupied our country."

"I…see."

"The truth is that the government-in-exile was largely irrelevant here in Greece," Theo continued as they drove out the main gate. "But the British backed them, and when they arrived here in October 1944 and ran the last of the Germans out of Athens things settled down for a little while. The British were rather popular here."

"So what happened?"

"The provisional government was formed out of representatives from the government-in-exile and the resistance movements. It was decided that all forces needed to be disarmed except for the regulars commanded by the government-in-exile. The EAM didn't like that, they demonstrated, someone opened fire, and the resultant fighting—we call it the Dekemvriana—went on for over a month here in Athens, although it never spread to the rest of the country. As you saw by the fact that the British are still here," Theo said as he pointed a thumb back at the airport, "The EAM lost."

"I take it that there are still problems, though."

"Plenty," Theo replied, pausing to dodge around a sputtering car and a bus, then continuing on. "A lot of people don't want the monarchy back, but the Communists angered a lot of people with some of their actions during and after the Dekemvriana. There's nothing happening right now, but this place is a tinderbox."

"Thanks for the heads-up," Whittaker replied, "but why are you telling me all this?"

"Because," Theo said flatly as they drove into the city, "I don't know why you're here, but I learned a few things during the occupation, and I know a secret rendezvous when I see one. You may have to get involved in the politics here to get your mission done, but try not to, for everyone's sake. Please."

"I'll keep that in mind and I thank you for the warning," Whittaker replied, "but I don't think I'll need to get involved in that to do my job."

"Good."

They drove on in silence after that as Whittaker wondered what he'd gotten into this time. This looked like it had the potential to be more of a mess than Shanghai had been. On the other hand, maybe it wouldn't be. He really did think they could get this Horner fellow out of the country without stumbling into a conflict that he really didn't know anything about other than one side were Communists, and surely he couldn't be as bad as that scientist.

Surely.

The rest of the journey passed in a blur as he wrestled with his thoughts, only coming back to the world when the car suddenly stopped.

"Welcome to the Church of St. Dionysius the Areopagite," Theo said cheerfully. "The largest Catholic church in Athens, and probably Greece."

Whittaker looked out the passenger window. It wasn't an especially large building, that was for sure—it looked sort of like St. Peter's Basilica in extreme miniature, with a portico in front and a fence surrounding it. At least one of the three gates in the fence was open.

"You said this place was Catholic?"

"Yes," Theo said softly. "Built by the first King of Greece in centuries, Otto of Bavaria. We got out from under the Ottomans after a century of oppression, and what happened? The man put on the throne couldn't even speak Greek!" he finished, then almost visibly bit off a longer statement. "I'm sorry. Ancient history."

"No, no. It's alright. Thank you for the ride, Theo," Whittaker replied as he opened the door and stepped out.

"Wait, Whit," he heard Theo exclaim behind him, and turned to see him holding out a small card. "This is my address. If you need help, come here, and ask for me. Understand?"

"I do," Whittaker said as he took the card and placed it in his breast pocket. "Thank you."

"Safe travels, Whit," Theo replied, leaned over, pulled the door shut, and drove away with a little wave.

Whittaker waved back, and then looked around to take in the street.

There was something that looked like a bank right across the way, and various other businesses as well. There were a lot of people out and about, mostly locals, but there were a few khaki uniforms here and there. It didn't look like there was a lot to do, and when he looked at his watch he didn't have a lot of time to just wander around.

So he turned around, looked at the church, and decided that he didn't want to stand outside for an hour.

So he went in.


	3. Part III: 1945

There was no one inside, at least not that Whittaker could see. It was beautiful, if a little sparer than he was used to thinking of churches being in this part of the world. He looked at his watch. He had almost an hour until he needed to meet Shelton at the hotel, and he really didn't want to arrive early.

So he decided to poke around a little. It was built in the Roman style—lots of arches along the side, no soaring heights—it felt almost cozy, in a way. He was there, he supposed, for about fifteen minutes before his explorations were interrupted.

"Good day, sir," a voice said, echoing slightly in the sanctuary. Whittaker turned to see a middle aged man who appeared to be the priest standing in a small doorway. "What brings you here to the Church of St. Dionysius? I don't think I've seen you here before."

"I've never been here before," Whittaker replied frankly.

"Ah, an American. I might have known. You're even more inquisitive than the British. It's welcome, though. I understand the curiosity. Not often that you find a Catholic church in these parts."

"You speak English very well."

The priest laughed. "Thank you," he replied. "This church is usually frequented only by foreigners. Not many Catholic Greeks, you know." The priest sighed. "A lot of rather wealthy foreigners, though, at least before the war—so the Church assigned me here, mostly because of my facility with languages."

"How many languages do you speak?"

"Greek, English, Italian, and German fluently, and I can get by in French and Spanish. And Latin, of course."

"Of course," Whittaker replied, feeling slightly uneasy at this reminder of what his father, an old-style Presbyterian, still called "popery."

The priest cocked his head to the side. "You're Protestant, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, that can't be helped," the man said wryly. "But I really should introduce myself. Father Marcus Sigala."

"Lieutenant Commander John Avery Whittaker. But please, call me Whit," he said as he stuck out his hand.

"A pleasure to meet you, Whit," the priest replied as he took Whittaker's hand in both of his and shook it. "And please, call me Marcus. You can call me Father Sigala after you convert."

His mouth quirked up in a smile. "You can try, but I'm afraid I'm a hard sell."

"You say that," Sigala replied, "but just wait until you hear me expound on transubstantiation. More seriously, though," he said, solemnity returning to him, "what brings you here to Athens? There aren't many Americans around here. On a long leave from Italy?"

"No sir," Whittaker replied, trying to find a way to tell the truth without giving away why he was there. He didn't like lying anywhere, but especially not in a church, and especially not to a priest. "I was assigned here to do a little looking around. There's a chance we might put a base here."

"I see. Well, I hope you send a good report back. There's a lot to recommend Athens as a base for you. Good climate, good food, and close proximity to the Bolsheviks."

"Excuse me?"

Sigala chuckled bitterly. "It's the next conflict, you know. We already had a little war here in Athens, and my surviving fellow priests say that the countryside is…tense. And the British have this sort of hurriedness that is most unlike them—it's like they're worried they'll have to leave soon."

He paused and shrugged. "Ah, no matter. It's not your problem. Just try to keep out of the local politics until you've been around here a little longer."

Whittaker had a sudden thought. He didn't know which way the hotel Shelton wanted to meet at was from here. He looked at his watch. He had forty minutes until he needed to be there, which meant he might need to start moving now.

"Do you need to be somewhere?" Sigala asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Whittaker replied, then decided there were some questions he could ask without giving anything away. "I was told to meet someone at a hotel two blocks away from here. Do you know which way I should go?"

"Whoever gave you those directions needs to learn how to give directions," Sigala said with a grimace. "But I think I know where you're meeting him. Go out the door, go to the street, and take a right. You'll see a hotel after two blocks. Oh, and feel free to come back here—over the past few years I've learned how to keep my counsel, ah, ecumenical."

"Thank you sir. Much obliged."

Sigala waved a hand. "It's my job. Oh, and Whit," he added, "do be careful. Things really are more dangerous than they seem around here."

* * *

As Whittaker walked down the street, he took his time and dawdled about as he walked, trying to get some kind of feel for the area.

He was not, he decided, that fond of Athens. It wasn't extremely crowded, and the weather and people were nice, but it seemed run-down, and like the decay had started before the Germans had taken the place over back in '41. Maybe they'd get the place fixed up once they got an actual government in place here.

He hoped so.

After managing to take nearly thirty minutes to walk two blocks, he heard Shelton call, "Commander!"

He turned to his left and saw the man sitting at some tables outside a building that he supposed was a hotel, although he wasn't sure. The street was clear for the moment, so he hurried across, taking a seat in response to Shelton's nod.

"You're here early," he said quietly without preamble. "I like that. The menus are in English _and_ Greek, one of the fortunate things about the British presence here. Eat quickly, though. My contact's arranged transportation, and it's coming here shortly, although he couldn't give me an exact time." He snorted. "Greeks. Always late."

"Where are we going in such a hurry?" Whittaker asked.

"We're going up to Niki—it's a small town on the northern border. From there we're going into Yugoslavia. I hope you keep a better eye out up there than you do here. That's Commie country, or so my contact tells me. He's also getting us some guns—you _do_ know how to use one, don't you?"

Whittaker shrugged. "I can handle a shotgun, and I'm trained on a .45."

Shelton nodded. "Good. If we need to use weapons, something will have gone wrong with the plan, but if we need them we'll need them _very_ badly. Fortunately, shotguns are one of the things in good supply around here. Krauts took most of their weapons with them when they left, and the Brits've kept a good eye on theirs. Russkies haven't gotten involved here yet, but you can bet they will soon enough." He fell silent as the waiter approached their table and spoke to Whittaker in Greek.

He shook his head in apology, looked at the menu quickly, and ordered by pointing at something. The waiter nodded and withdrew, and Shelton resumed, still quietly.

"It's not going to be easy. My contact says some of Tito's boys have Horner, and they're trying to decide whether to try and ransom him back to us or sell him to Uncle Joe Stalin and claim the Krauts did for him." He took out and lit a cigarette. "Do you smoke, Commander?"

"No sir. Never tried." Whittaker was growing somewhat unnerved. This was the most talkative the other man had been in days.

"Settles the nerves—you should try it sometime. Anyway, Inglis sent me over with some cash, and we should be able to get Horner out, no sweat. Just stay on an even keel, and don't try to do something heroic. This is just a simple retrieval mission," Shelton said between puffs.

As he finished saying this, much to Whittaker's surprise, the waiter appeared with their food and some water, placed the plates in front of them, and left. Shelton dug in immediately, but the younger man took a moment to look at his food.

He wasn't entirely sure what the two things was in front of him, honestly. It reminded him of the tacos he'd been introduced to during his time in San Diego before being shipped off to the Solomon Islands, except the bread was a lot thicker.

Shelton noticed that he wasn't eating yet. "It's called a gyro. Just eat it like you would a sandwich."

Whittaker smiled slightly. "Not like a sandwich. Like a taco," he said cheerfully, took a bite, realized that he was ravenously hungry, and proceeded to devour first one, and then the other, pausing to wash it down with some water every couple of bites.

Shelton blinked, his meal only half-finished. "I thought you'd eaten when we landed in Rome."

Whittaker shrugged. "Flying takes away my appetite."

"Well, that won't be a problem here," Shelton said wryly, Whittaker again being somewhat discomfited by the sudden change in his character. He then looked around Whittaker. "It looks like he's come early."

Whittaker didn't turn around—he was a comparative novice at this, but he knew that much—and Shelton grunted approval. "Leave a dollar on the table—that'll more than pay for the meal. I'm going to get up in about thirty seconds. Wait a minute or so, then go around the block. The truck'll be waiting there—it's missing the passenger-side mirror."

Whittaker nodded. "Are we traveling in the back?"

"Yes." He stood, then stuck his hand out. "It was good to see you, Commander. We should talk again before you go back to the States."

"Likewise," Whittaker replied, and shook his hand. Shelton then turned and walked back into the hotel, as Whittaker sat down and shook his head ruefully. Of course Shelton had been talking to him—he wanted it to seem like they were acquaintances who'd happened to run into each other in Athens. It was somewhat relieving to know that the man's personality hadn't turned itself on its head in two hours, but it was disconcerting to know that the other man was that good at dissembling. He still wasn't sure how much he trusted him.

He waited a few more moments, got out a dollar and put it on the table, stood up from his chair, and walked away like he was going somewhere but wasn't in any particular hurry—at least that's what he tried to do, he was no good at this spy business. He turned left at the corner of the hotel, walked down the street, and turned left again to find a farm truck idling there without a passenger-side mirror. Well, it was good to know that Shelton hadn't lied about that, at least. Once he got around to the back, he stopped to see how he should get on board.

It wasn't the easiest thing to determine. At first glance, the truckbed looked like it was filled to the brim with boxes and crates. Then he took a closer look and smiled. The crate on one side was taller than the other, but was pushed back a little. Clever.

He looked around briefly to make sure no one was looking in his direction, then quickly clambered on and dropped prone to crawl into the shelter of the boxes, and quickly came to face-to-face with Shelton.

"Glad you made it," he said. "Help me push this box back."

They did so, and Whittaker took a moment to admire the setup. The bottom crates on the sides of the truck protruded about six inches out from under the ones stacked on top of them and were about two feet high, which meant that others could be stacked on top of them while leaving room in the center for passengers. It wasn't the roomiest accommodation, but it would do.

He mentioned this to Shelton, who only grunted in reply, then added, "We should be going soon. Moving that crate was the signal to the driver to get going."

Whittaker felt the truck suddenly shift its weight towards the front.

"There he is," Shelton said. "Fair warning—the roads are bumpy, and my contact told me this driver's somewhat prone to driving faster than he should. So brace yourself, and try not to run into me."

The truck started forward with a lurch and a swerve as the driver got onto the street, and Whittaker was barely able to keep himself from crashing into Shelton.

"Good. Like that. Also, just so you know, it's going to be about twelve hours."

Whittaker groaned inwardly.

"Don't worry. The driver's going to let us out in Karditsa to take care of business."

"How far away is that?"

"Six hours or so."

Whittaker sighed and braced himself as he felt the truck swing hard around a corner. This was going to be a long night.

* * *

Thirteen hours later—the truck had had a minor breakdown when the driver had taken one too many hard turns in the mountains and thrown the engine out of alignment, or something like that, he wasn't entirely sure—they crawled out of the back of the truck and into a garage, where a very unhappy man greeted them in Greek with an accent Whittaker couldn't quite place, then spoke for nearly a minute.

When he finished, Shelton replied in badly-accented Greek, and the man nodded, turned, and left.

"He's saying we should have changed clothes—we look far too much like the British, and they're not welcome up here right now. He's going to find us some civilian clothing."

"Well, that's good."

"Not good, Whittaker. If things are already that bad up here, getting Horner out is going to be a lot more complicated."

Then the door to the garage opened, and Whittaker found himself staring down the barrels of two MP40s and several rifles of various makes, with their erstwhile host in the background.

There wasn't much else to do, so he raised his hands slowly as Shelton cursed and did the same.

The man in front gestured with his gun for them to come out and spoke—also in Greek.

As they walked forward, Shelton whispered, "He said the boss in Medzhitlija wants to see us."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Just let me do the talking."

Whittaker shrugged. It wasn't like _he_ knew the language.

"I'm going to try and find out who he is," Shelton continued, then spoke to the man in front, who replied with some frustration and motioned more emphatically with his gun.

"He's saying the name isn't important and we'd better get a move on."

Whittaker shrugged again. It wasn't going to be a pleasant walk, but it was better than getting shot.


	4. Part IV: 1990

Andrew spoke suddenly. "Turn off at this next exit, Whit."

Whit broke from his memories and looked at the sign, which indicated that the next exit was in two miles. "Is this the exit to Hepburn's house?" he asked.

Andrew shook his head. "No, but it is the exit for the main tabletop gaming store in this part of the state."

"Why do we need to go there?"

"The owner's one of the old guard in the role-playing community—he was one of the playtesters when Gary Gygax first built D&D, and he knows just about everyone worth knowing. Maybe he can tell us something about Hepburn."

Whit hesitated. If what Andrew had told him was true, they needed to get to Hepburn as soon as they could, before he moved on somewhere. On the other hand, maybe this fellow might know something that could help.

Like whether or not Hepburn had managed to make Boards of Talisman available to the general public. _That_ was a frightening thought, and Whit nodded and turned on his signal.

"What's his name, by the way?"

* * *

"Avery Listinsky, at your service," the portly fellow standing behind the counter said when they walked in the door. "Andrew, have you heard about what's happened recently?"

"Yes, I have, that's actually what I wanted to talk to you…why are you shaking your head?"

Listinsky sighed and visibly drooped. "The recent suicides aren't just local. They're nationwide."

" _What?"_ Andrew said, and Whit sighed. Yes, he definitely should have done something about this sooner, and he was going to spend a lot of time dealing with guilt and grief. But there were things that needed doing before that.

"Let me guess," he said. "Everyone who's committed suicide is between the ages of 16 and 24, LARPed, and, I'll hazard, had some sort of encounter with a man named Niall Hepburn or played a game called Castles and Cauldrons."

Listinsky paused and furrowed his brow as he thought. "The first two parts are correct, but I don't know about that last bit—well, I remember back at that convention—one second!" he exclaimed, and moved surprisingly quickly to his computer and began furiously typing.

"What's he doing?" Whit asked Andrew quietly.

"He's probably going to some of the online gaming forums to ask if anyone who knew the people knows of anything they had in common," Andrew whispered back.

"Online gaming forums?"

"Yeah, it's like a place where people can hang out and talk about stuff. Usually they're focused around specific topics, like gaming or TV shows or whatever, but people end up talking about life stuff."

"Ah, so, like a chatroom?"

"Sort of. There's a little more permanence to it."

"You know," Listinsky said as he continued to type, "it really wouldn't surprise me if Hepburn had something to do with it."

"Why?" Whit said, somewhat surprised by this admission.

The man shrugged. "He rubbed me the wrong way the first time I saw him. I've run into all kinds of people in my time, Mister…"

"Whittaker. John Avery Whittaker, but you can call me Whit."

"Call me Avery, then," the shopowner said with a grunt of satisfaction. "Anyway, especially in this business, you run into some people who…well, are a little enamored of the darkness, you know what I mean?"

Whit nodded.

"Usually it's harmless enough—they usually don't have a clue what they're doing, and no harm's done, or they just like to fantasize about being vampires or whatever."

He paused for a moment as he did something that involved a lot of clicking his mouse, then continued to type and talk.

"But every now and then…it's a tight-knit community, and you hear things, you know? And I've run into a couple of things I couldn't explain naturally. And every time one of those stories comes up, there's always somebody there with this aura of…wrongness. Like there's something there that shouldn't be, or there's something missing that should be there, if that makes sense."

It did. First, he'd met the sort of people Avery was talking about more than a few times in his life. Second, Whit had also met a few people like Avery as well. They didn't quite understand how this sort of thing actually worked, but they knew enough to avoid the most obviously evil entities. However, when he glanced over and saw the mandala on the far wall, he was reminded that the important part there was _obviously_.

"So anyway, about a month or so ago Hepburn came by here, said he was thinking about putting that game of his, _Castles and Cauldrons_ , out on the open market. He was planning on doing a simultaneous nationwide release, and wanted to know if I wanted in on it."

Avery shook his head. "I asked him to give me some time, then I called some of the other store owners I knew—there's not many of us, y'know—and asked what they'd thought."

"None of them had agreed to sell it."

"That's right. Thing is, Hepburn'd apparently been traveling around the country, setting up groups and then moving on, mostly starting out of conventions in the big cities. He'd been to LA, Houston, New York, and Philly, and he'd just gotten around to Chicago. Well, we all started comparing notes, called in some other people, and everyone reported getting the same vibe off him, and that everyone who'd started in on the game had kind of dropped out of the wider community. It was like the game had taken over their lives, and nobody wanted to get involved with that sort of mess."

Yes, this all sounded _very_ familiar to Whit.

"So I called him back and told him no. Said I had limited shelf space and some prior contracts. He said that was alright, as he was still working on some of the details. Said he'd call back by Samhain."

Whit sighed inwardly. Of course Hepburn would call it Samhain.

"But then all this started happening and—wait, people are starting to reply to my posts. One sec." He clicked the mouse a few times, typed a couple of things, and his eyebrows shot up. "You were right, Whit. Knowing Hepburn and playing _Castles and Cauldrons_ seem to be the main things these suicides have in common." He paused. "How did you guess?"

"Some of the things Andrew here said," Whit replied, "and some of the things I've seen over the years. I've seen this sort of thing before, and unlike you I can put my finger on what's going on."

Avery looked at him skeptically. "With all due respect, you don't look the type to know about this sort of thing."

Whit smiled. "No, I'm not a gamer, and I'm not a fantasist. What I am is a Christian," he saw Avery's eyes narrow, but he pretended not to notice as he went on, "who wants the exact same thing you do."

"And what would that be?"

"For people to be able to enjoy themselves without worrying about the forces of darkness—that is, Satan. And demons."

"You think Hepburn's a demon or something?"

"No, I don't think so. But while you might be skeptical, you might want to ask yourself—how many suicides happened recently thanks to Hepburn?"

"More than twenty, less than thirty. We're not sure right now."

"Do you really think anything other than the Devil would be involved with that?" Whit asked quietly.

"Well, I guess, but…the Devil?"

Whit sighed inwardly as he thought, _The greatest trick Satan ever pulled_ … "Look, I'm not asking you to believe in Lucifer, first among the archangels, who attempted to overthrow God and was cast from heaven for his pains and tempted Eve and then Adam into sin. I'm just asking you to believe that there's a malevolent force behind this mess. Call it what you like."

"Fair enough," Listinsky replied. "I guess what you're saying makes sense." He paused and thought for a moment, then nodded unwillingly. "Yeah, it really does. What do you want me to do?"

Now it was Whit's turn to stop and think. Did he want Listinsky to come along? No. If he and Andrew couldn't handle it, they'd need a lot more help than the other man could offer. But he wasn't going to let Hepburn do any more damage, or, if the worst happened, get away with it.

"Tell everyone you know that Niall Hepburn is dangerous and not to be trusted, and to spread the word. Your friends are probably already figuring that out now, but make it explicit, and tell them to watch for anyone who might fit his description and style."

"I can do that, no problem. He'll be blackballed for certain," Avery said with a nod. "What are you going to be doing, Whit?"

"Dealing with him once and for all."

The man blinked. "I don't know, Whit. That sounds like it could get you and Andrew into a lot of trouble. Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I agree that you shouldn't take the law into your own hands. This…isn't a matter of law. I won't be breaking any laws today."

"Wait…how would you deal with this guy, once and for all, without breaking any laws? And it sounds like you knew this guy once."

"A long time ago, Avery. Now listen, we need to go. _Get the word out,_ understand? You _don't_ want this to repeat, and if something goes wrong—well, it might try to even if everything goes right. Do you understand? I can come back and explain everything— _later._ "

"Sure, Whit. Can do."

"Come on, Andrew. We need to go."

* * *

"So, what was that all about?" Andrew asked as they climbed into the car.

"First tell me which way I need to go from here, then I'll explain things," Whit said as he put the car in gear and backed out of the parking space.

"Just get back on the interstate. We've still got a few miles to go before the exit to Hepburn's place, and I don't know the back roads around here real well."

"Thanks."

The car was silent as they got back on the interstate and Whit thought about what he'd seen in places like Yugoslavia, India, South America, and even America. Then Andrew spoke up.

"So…are you going to explain what you were talking about with Avery?"

Whit shook out of his brief reverie. "I'm sorry. That conversation just brought a lot of memories back." He sighed. "There are certain things that people shouldn't play with. Outside of some pretty clearly laid out boundaries, the supernatural is on that list."

He paused for a moment to pass an eighteen-wheeler.

"Ouija boards, most forms of meditation, _anything_ that involves calling on spirits—most of the time, I'll admit that it's not apparently harmful, especially not immediately. But when it does start obviously hurting people, it gets really bad, really fast. People die—or worse, they gain powers they shouldn't have, use them for evil, and pay _dearly_ for them. Hepburn is one of the latter."

"Does this have anything to do with that story you were telling before I asked you to pull off the interstate?"

"Do you want to hear more?"

"I really just want to know why something that happened sixty years ago in Yugoslavia's relevant to what's going on right now."

"Oh, trust me. I'm getting there."


	5. Part V: 1945

As they were marched out of the garage, Whittaker decided to look around now that he wasn't either stuck hiding in the back of a truck or sneaking from the back of a truck into a building. From what he could tell, thanks to the light of the nearly-full moon reflecting off the snow, it was pleasant-looking if hardscrabble country, although he was a little cold now that he was out in the wind.

The men around him looked healthy and well-fed, but he was reminded of some of the Marines he'd seen right after Guadalcanal—having enough food to eat on a regular basis was a recent development for them, they'd been fighting for a long time, and they'd lost a lot of friends.

Such men were dangerous, and he hoped Shelton wouldn't do anything stupid.

He snorted slightly.

Shelton was certainly thinking the same thing about him.

They walked through the snow and the woods and over the border, and he noticed that there was little difference between the Greek part and the Yugoslav part.

The flags he could see were even similar—they were red, although the designs were slightly different. He'd known that Tito's forces were Communists, but it was a little jarring to actually see it firsthand.

There weren't many people on the streets of what he assumed was Medzhitlija, but they looked much the same as the men who'd come for him and Shelton—not living in constant fear of their lives was something they were just getting used to again.

He hoped it would stay that way, but he doubted it. His father had sponsored some emigres from Russia in the years following the Revolution, and they got together every so often to talk about what had happened. The stories from the ones who fled in 1918 and 1919 were bad enough, with angry mobs chasing down anyone they thought was a Tsarist. The ones who'd fled in the early '20s had similar stories to those, but threw secret policemen and severe food shortages bordering on famine into the bargain as well.

He said a quick prayer for the people of Medzhitlija, Yugoslavia, and Greece, but he knew there had to be something else he could do. But what?

The wind and the snow began to pick up, and the men escorting them signaled that they needed to walk faster. Whittaker complied—what else was there to do, until the situation changed—but Shelton dragged his feet until one of their guards shoved him forward and he nearly fell on his face. After that, he moved a little faster.

About ten minutes after they'd been dragged from the garage, they stopped in front of a decent-sized house, and the leader of the group rapped on the door—five knocks, a pause, and then two more.

Apparently "shave-and-a-haircut, two bits" had made it all the way here. He wondered where they'd picked up on it.

The door opened, and the leader stepped back from it and motioned them inside. Reluctantly, he entered, and found himself in what might have been a good-sized room if there were not four men, each armed with a weapon from a different country, in it as well as the furniture.

As the others came in, it quickly got more than a little cramped.

At least it was warm, though.

The leader of their group and one of the men inside, the latter holding what looked like a Schmeisser, had either a very quiet argument or very intense discussion for a few minutes, which Whittaker spent regretting the fact that he didn't know any of the local languages and trying desperately to figure out what they were saying.

The only thing he knew was that they kept casting glances at him and Shelton, which could mean any number of things, few of them good.

Finally, they finished their conversation, and the man who had led them here walked over, spoke to them in Greek, and jabbed his gun—a Sten—in the direction of the stairs.

"He wants us to meet the headman," Shelton whispered. "No funny business. Like I said, let me do the talking."

They walked up the stairs, the guerrilla three paces behind them, holding the submachinegun at his hip. Once they reached the top of the stairs, they went down a short hallway that led to what Whittaker thought was an ominous-looking door, with a man standing in front of it holding what looked like a trench gun.

He couldn't explain why he thought it was ominous—it didn't look any different from the other doors in the hallway—but it did.

The man with the trench gun knocked on the door, and whoever was behind the door said something querously in Greek. The man Whit could see then shouted a question to the one behind him, and the man who'd led them here shouted an answer that included the word "Americans" in it, and the voice from behind the door said something that sounded affirmative.

He glanced over at Shelton, and saw that he had an odd look on his face, like he'd recognized the voice in question. Was that Horner behind that door?

The man standing guard swung the door open and gestured grandly for them to come in, then stepped back through the doorway, obviously ready to use the trench gun if either of them tried any funny business.

They stepped through, and turned to face where the voice had seemed to come from. The man sitting in the armchair looked to be about Shelton's age, but something about him seemed wrong, and Whit couldn't figure out what it was. Perhaps it was the way his smile seemed half-sincere, half-faked.

"Nils?" Shelton half-asked, half-stated.

"Henry," the man who was presumably Horner replied, with a cheer that seemed more than a little forced. "What brings you to Yugoslavia?"

"You dropped out of contact and we needed to know what happened. Then I heard you'd been captured by Titoists, so we came up to ransom you back."

Horner laughed. "Yes, I'm sorry about that. There were…certain matters that required…arranging."

Whit noticed that the man was holding a small, polished wooden box in his lap, and seemed to be stroking it like a beloved pet. That, and the odd way he'd said that last sentence, raised his hackles even more.

"Also," Horner continued, "I should apologize for how you were brought here. Dusan is a good fellow, but he is a bit more…forceful…than is really necessary, sometimes." He shrugged. "But, we all have our faults, I suppose. Now, we three should talk. Dusan, Branko," he began, then began to speak to them in Greek, presumably so Shelton could understand what he was saying.

When he finished, the two guerrillas walked out of the room, plainly unhappy but unwilling to disobey orders.

That seemed odd. From what little Whit had heard of the guerilla fighters in this part of the world, they were a fractious bunch, not prone to obeying orders they didn't like unless they were overawed by the one giving them—and while appearances could be deceiving, Horner didn't seem the type that could do so with such men.

The door shut.

"So, did you plant that story about the guerrillas capturing you?" Shelton asked.

Horner nodded. "Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"Reasons that I can't discuss right now. But they're good ones. Listen, we need to leave, soon. I found something here that could give the Navy the edge it needs for what's coming."

Shelton shook his head. "No. Not until I get some answers."

An odd expression flitted across Horner's face momentarily, but he shrugged. "Sit, then. This could take some time."

Once they had done so, in some chairs on the other side of the room, Horner began talking. "I know it's strange that I'm here, since the last message ONI got from me was sent from Kotor."

"It seemed odd," Shelton replied noncommittally.

"Well, that has to do with what I found. About three months after I got there, back in '39, I met a man named Grgur Zivkovic. He was a bookseller who lived over his shop, and he was interested in anything strange. He was the one who showed me this," he continued, pointing to the box in his lap. "He said he didn't know what it was, and he'd thought about getting rid of it, but whenever he was going to he suddenly felt this _need_ to keep it around."

 _That does not sound like something_ I'd _want to have around,_ Whit thought.

Horner kept on. "When the Germans and Italians unexpectedly invaded, I was up in the north of the country, and got caught behind their lines. I had a devil of a time getting back to Kotor, and when I did I decided to see if Zivkovic was all right." He sighed. "Apparently when the Italians tried to hit the Yugoslav navy, some of their bombs hit the town, and one of them landed on Zivkovic's place. He was inside at the time. And that's when I picked this up."

He pointed at the box again, and Whit started to wonder why Horner was so fixated on the thing.

"Well, I don't think I need to tell you the rest of the story about how I fell in with a group of partisans and became their leader, or how we became one of the most successful partisan bands—of our size, anyway—in Tito's army. But it was all thanks to this," he finished, holding the box up.

"Nils," Shelton said slowly, "what is in that box?"

"The secret to my success. With this, I can see things on the ground like I was in a plane. I can cloud men's minds to conceal myself and others. I can convince men to follow me who otherwise wouldn't. This…is the Board of Talisman!" he proclaimed as he slid the box open.

It was, Whit thought, the silliest name for something he'd ever heard of, and the claims Horner was making were ridiculous, to boot. But there was no sign of madness in the man, and he didn't seem like he was lying or joking.

"Come on, look at it," he added. "It's quite harmless now."

Something about that sentence didn't particularly reassure Whit, but Shelton stepped forward and eyed it for several seconds. "Doesn't look like much," he said dryly.

"Of course it doesn't," Horner said with a gleam in his eye. "But it's how I know that you two left Hassani Airfield in Athens separately, met again at the Argypoulou Hotel, and ate there—both of you had gyros, by the way."

Shelton seemed skeptical. "You could have had someone from your group stationed at the airport to watch for us and follow us when we landed."

"I also know that Admiral Inglis told you that Commander Whittaker was along only because he thought a second man would be needed, and that if he had any choice he wouldn't be going with you. Apparently he doesn't think the young commander," he nodded towards Whit, "has the right mindset for our work."

Shelton looked slightly shaken, but Whit could see the wheels turning in his head. "You think this could be useful?"

"Oh yes. Imagine what ONI could do with this! We could sneak men into enemy ports with no on being the wiser—or even into their naval ministries themselves! Spying, sabotaging, checking on enemy fleet movements, all made as easy as falling off a log. We could be _the_ premiere intelligence agency—forget Donovan and his cowboys."

Absently, he added, "I've had _so_ much trouble with them."

Whit didn't like this at all. Something seemed extremely wrong to him, and he cleared his throat before saying, "So how does this 'Board of Talisman' work?"

"Yes, and could you make more of them?" Shelton added. Whit looked sharply over at him. The older man was far more experienced than he was—surely he was feeling the same things. Wasn't he?

Horner laughed. "Making one takes some knowledge that few have, but once you know how it's easy as anything. As to how it works…" he paused. "You wish a demonstration?"

Shelton shrugged. "It would be useful, particularly if you could look at something happening in DC that we could write down."

"Yes. Very well." Horner lifted the board out of the box, and Whit felt his discomfort grow. Something was _very_ wrong here.

"Shalman!" Horner called—and gunfire erupted outside the house.

All three men dove for the floor, Whit trying to get as far away from Shelton and Horner as possible. He did _not_ want to be near that box for anything.

Horner cursed and snarled, "Chetniks! They must have followed us here. They won't last long, though." He turned to Shelton.

"There's a couple of guns over there," he said, pointing to a bench by the wall. "You and Whittaker grab them and throw some lead to keep our friends out there busy while I make preparations."

Shelton just nodded and crawled towards where Horner had pointed, Whit following as he heard Horner begin to speak softly but clearly behind them.

As they yanked the rifles and ammunition out from under the bench, Whit looked at the other man and said quietly, "We shouldn't be helping him."

"Are you _nuts?_ " Shelton asked as he slammed a clip into his rifle's magazine. "First, he's our only way out of here. Second, didn't you hear what he said? I don't care how that thing works, do you have any idea how valuable that could be for ONI and the country? We've got another war coming, _Commander,_ and we need all the help we can get. So we are going to help him get us out of here and then back to the States with that whatever-it-is, and that is an order."

Whit barely heard him over the sounds of the gunfire—and Horner's steadily rising voice, which was speaking words in a tongue no human should have ever been able to speak as the room grew darker—but understood him all the same.

It didn't matter, and he looked Shelton dead in the face. "No. There are some allies no man should have."

Shelton cursed. "Inglis warned me you didn't have the guts for this work. Well, I suppose you'll—"

Shelton had been swinging his rifle to bear as he said this, but Whit had started moving from the moment he'd started talking, and his rifle butt smacked into Shelton's jaw. He dropped the rest of the way to the floor, and Whit looked around for Horner. He couldn't see where he was, but he was somewhere in the room, and there was something coming that Whit did not want to be here to greet.

He dropped the rifle and broke for the window as Horner screamed something at him that he did his best not to hear. He'd take his chances with whoever was outside.


	6. Part VI: 1990 & 1945

"That was the last time I saw either of them alive," Whit finished. "We found Commander Shelton with his throat cut the next morning, but there wasn't any sign of Horner or the Board of Talisman."

"Wait, you said, 'we.' So what happened with the guys who attacked the house?"

"They weren't Tito's men coming to finish the job, which was a good thing for me—if it had been, _I_ might have ended up needing a ransom. They were some Greek guerrillas, who'd apparently caught wind of Horner's…allies, as well as some stories about how he and his band operated, and took advantage of the distraction we provided. Reporting back to Washington empty-handed and without Shelton or Horner wasn't pleasant, but they were willing to accept that I hadn't killed Shelton, and that Horner had apparently gone mad and probably died. So they demobilized me and said not to let the door hit me on the way out."

That wasn't the entire truth, but Whit didn't think Andrew needed the full explanation of why those guerrillas had heard about Horner—especially because he hadn't been the one to tell them—or what exactly had happened when he got home. For one thing, that information was still classified, as far as he knew.

However, Andrew seemed more interested in other things. "So what is the Board of Talisman, then?"

"From what I could gather, it's like a Ouija board. The difference is that with a Ouija board, you make contact with the supernatural one time in a thousand, if that often, and usually not anything powerful." Whit sighed. "Which, mind you, doesn't mean there isn't a lot of trouble when you make contact. A Board of Talisman is different—contact is almost guaranteed, and you end up dealing with things that are more…serious."

He paused. There it was. There was something evil near.

"We're getting close, and I need to concentrate. Just tell me when I need to turn."

This wasn't going to be dangerous for him, but Andrew was still vulnerable, although hopefully less so than he had been.

"Got it," Andrew replied, and sat quietly.

He began to pray, as the darkness grew closer, more for the young man next to him than himself. He needed Andrew's directions for the first two turns, but he didn't need him to tell him to turn on the dirt driveway—he could feel that the darkness was in that direction.

And when he saw the farmhouse, standing lonely with only an empty carport next to it, he knew that was where Horner/Hepburn—and Shalman—waited. The only question was whether they would stand and fight or turn and run.

He hoped they stayed. If they ran, they'd take the Board with them, and then the whole thing would start all over again in a few decades or so.

When they reached the driveway and he braked, he glanced over at Andrew, who looked like he was about to vomit.

"What's wrong?" he asked, suspecting that he knew.

"Lot of things trying to come into my head that I don't want," the young man said tightly. "I can deal with it—feels like there's something helping me keep them out."

"Alright. You don't have to come with me if you don't want to."

"I think I need to," he replied. "Let's get this done."

"Agreed," Whit said, and he opened the car door and stepped out, almost in perfect time with the farmhouse's front door opening and someone stepping through it and shutting it behind him.

As Whit shut the car door, he saw that the man who stood in front of him could have been Nils Horner's older brother, so he decided to take a guess.

"Hello, Nils," he said, softly but clearly.

"It's Niall Hepburn, now," Horner replied, smiling even more unnaturally than he had that night nearly fifty years ago. "This traitor should have told you that." He looked around. "What, you didn't come with allies this time?" he asked mockingly.

"Do you really think that I was somehow involved with that?" Whit asked.

"Of course you were," Horner snapped. "How else would something like that had happened?"

"I think you know," Whit said quietly. "Because you're not Nils Horner at all, are you?"

"What?" Andrew said through gritted teeth. "This isn't even Horner?"

"No. Nils Horner lost control a long time ago, didn't he?"

"Yes. That night, actually. What he asked for…well, it took a lot out of him. Enough that I could take over. It took awhile for me to learn how to walk amongst you, but I managed it."

Whit wasn't surprised, and for a moment felt pity for Horner—he suspected that Shalman had done things even Horner wouldn't have done, and it couldn't be easy to be a prisoner in your own body.

But right now, what mattered was getting this demon out of here. What happened to Horner was up to God.

As he was about to open his mouth, the thing that had been inhabiting Horner's body shrugged. "Well, it's been fun, but I must be…" only to be cut short by Andrew suddenly running forward and tackling him back into the door, which certainly disrupted Shalman's concentration.

Whit had not been expecting that, but he wasn't about to complain, and spoke calmly, but with authority.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, _go out of this man!_ "

Usually, he knew, there was no struggle, no dramatic contest of wills between the demon and its exorcist. The drama of casting out demons, at least in his experience, was almost always before, not during, the exorcism.

This time was no exception, as the demon shrieked, once, and Whit felt the darkness around them vanish as though it had never been.

Andrew let go of Horner's body and staggered back, holding his head. "My head feels weird," he said quietly, "like something's missing, but it's something that I don't want to be…what the—!"

Andrew's jaw slackened in horror as fifty years of aging and decomposition caught up with Horner in a matter of moments, something Whit hadn't thought about—if he had, he would have warned the boy. But even as he completed the thought, the decaying bones that had once been Nils Horner's body, and the clothes that had covered it, slumped to the porch.

Then something happened that raised even his eyebrows—the bones and clothes themselves crumbled into nothingness, leaving nothing but a wooden box, one Whit remembered all too well, on the hardwood. That was…unexpected. Even so, he wasn't going to complain about it, and he said a brief prayer of thanks.

"How are we going to explain this to the cops?" Andrew asked.

"We tell them the truth. We came here, talked with Hepburn, and then he seemed to vanish into thin air," Whit said as he went up the porch steps to make sure that the box held the Board.

"You call the cops, and don't touch anything. I'm going to take a quick look around the house," he continued as he pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket.

He wasn't sure what else might be in there, but he was fairly confident that some of it was the sort of thing that didn't need to be kept in a police evidence locker or sold at auction—especially that last one.

After that, things went much as he'd anticipated. The police showed up, took their statements, both of which boiled down to "we were worried about him, we came here, we saw him, he seemed to vanish, we called you," and, since there was no sign of any foul play on their parts, let them go.

"So what happens now?" Andrew asked as they drove away.

Whit shrugged. "They'll file a missing persons report on Hepburn, and in about seven years they'll move him into the 'presumed dead' file. Listinsky and his colleagues will try and bring in whatever copies of Castles and Cauldrons they can find and destroy the Boards of Talisman. That's what I'm going to do with this," Whit patted his shirt pocket, "along with some of the more…esoteric stuff Hepburn had." He'd use fire, of course. That always worked.

"What should I do?"

That was actually an important question, and he was going to have to modify his usual answers a little. "The first thing I would do would be to go back to your role-playing group and reconnect with them—my guess is that you've been distancing yourself from them for awhile."

Andrew sighed and looked down at his feet. "Yeah. I did. Think they'll have me back?"

"They'll be happy that you're alive," Whit replied. "They might be a little cool at first, but they should come around."

Andrew opened his mouth, then shut it.

"What is it?"

"There's some questions I'd like to ask," Andrew said, "but I don't quite know how to start. Like, how did you do that? It was like you were swatting a fly!"

This was the perfect opening. "Well, you see, Andrew…"

Once he'd dropped Andrew off with the Barclays, with his phone number in case he had any further questions, a pastoral recommendation (namely, the pastor working with Len), and had a quick conversation with George Barclay about the matter, Whit drove up to the lake.

He'd talk with Tom and his pastor about this later, and probably call Jack up as well, but right now he needed some time alone with God.

As he stepped out of the car, he said a quick prayer for Andrew, Len, and Avery Listinsky, that they might truly understand what had happened, and turn to the only true source of protection against such. He smiled, then, for a moment, and let himself drift back to the end of 1945…

* * *

Whittaker sat nervously outside of Inglis' office, going over what had happened in and what he was going to say in his mind one more time before the admiral called him in.

He'd been rather surprised when, after he hit the snow, he'd heard the men attacking the house yelling in Greek, not Serbian, had been more surprised when someone had run out and dragged him behind some cover, and even more surprised that that someone had been Theo, holding an MP40 in one hand.

"I thought I told you to stay out of politics, Whit," he'd said with a weary smile. "Now stay here. This won't take long."

It hadn't. Within five minutes, the house was a roaring bonfire, the few survivors of Horner's band were kneeling in the snow with rifles trained on them, the Greeks surrounding the house were reporting no sign of anyone escaping, and Whittaker found himself talking with Theo, Father Sigala, of all people, and an OSS operative who answered only to the name of Forbes about what had just happened.

The story he'd gotten from them was fairly simple. Horner and his band had developed a reputation in the Balkans for both effectiveness and there being something just _off_ about them. As a result, once Yugoslavia was liberated, Tito's partisans had decided that they could dispense with their services, and had tried to get rid of them. They hadn't quite succeeded, and while they'd badly hurt Horner's group, the core had managed to slip away. Horner had then withdrawn to the border, where the Titoists didn't quite have the reach to get to him, and let out that they were holding him for ransom.

Forbes, who'd been working in the area since early 1943, knew all about Horner and his activities, and had somehow caught wind of his supernatural ally and its origin. He'd wanted to try and rid the world of the thing, but hadn't wanted to act until the war was over—and by the time that whole mess had been sorted out, Horner had gone to ground.

When he received word from Washington that Whittaker and Shelton were on their way to 'rescue' Horner and to offer them every assistance, he saw the best chance that he'd ever have of actually finding and eliminating the man. So he got in contact with Father Sigala, who'd been heavily involved with the resistance in Athens. Sigala, in turn, had contacted Theo, who worked at the airfield, and asked him to call Forbes whenever the Americans landed.

Theo had smiled wryly at that point. "When you walked into the office asking for directions for how to get to Father Sigala's church, it was as though God Himself had intervened," he'd said.

Whittaker couldn't argue with that, especially since the conversations he'd had with Theo and Sigala had caused the two to agree that he could probably be trusted to react badly to Horner's activities.

Also, the fact that he'd mentioned the hotel name to Sigala meant that they'd been able to alert some of their people, one of whom had gotten a table nearby and listened into the conversation. They'd been able to follow the truck out of Athens with little trouble all the way to Karditsa, and while Shelton and Whittaker had stretched their legs, one of Forbes' contacts in the area had bribed the driver for the final destination, which he'd provided to the trio when they'd arrived in the town an hour later along with some former resistance fighters.

Forbes had then called up some of his friends along the border, none of whom had wanted Horner in the area, and made the necessary arrangements to ensure that they had firepower enough to take out Horner quickly and that they wouldn't be interrupted by people investigating a firefight. What had followed didn't need explaining.

"So what're you going to tell Inglis?" Forbes had asked once they'd finished.

Whittaker had shrugged. "The truth. Shelton and I managed to make contact with Horner, we were attacked by an overwhelming force, Horner and Shelton both died and I barely made it out alive." He looked at Forbes. "Is that going to contradict anything you'll be reporting?"

"No."

"Then that's all I'm going to say."

They'd then waited until sunrise, when they could search the burnt-out house without flashlights. They'd found Shelton's charred body on the second floor, throat cut deeply enough that they could tell it was how he died despite the body's condition.

Forbes had grunted. "There was usually some kind of sacrifice, sometimes human, whenever he wanted to do something big. I guess however he got out of there rated one, and Shelton fit the bill. I suppose that wraps everything up. Theo, Father Sigala, you'll take care of the prisoners?"

The two men nodded, and Whittaker decided not to ask any questions about the matter.

Forbes had then turned to him and said only, "Now let's get you back to Washington, Commander. Glad they sent you and not someone else."

And so, after sprinting back across the border with Shelton's body, one step ahead of the extremely dilatory Yugoslavians, traveling back down to Athens, making the proper arrangements to deliver the body back to the States, informing ONI of what had happened, and writing out his report, Whittaker found himself back where the whole mess had started.

"Come in, Commander," Inglis barked, and he stood, entered the office, came to attention, and saluted.

Inglis returned it, and then snarled. "What happened out there?"

"It's all there in my report, sir," he replied. "When we found Horner, something went wrong during the trade, and by the time it was over Horner and Commander Shelton were both dead."

Inglis grunted. "I don't think you're telling me everything, Commander, but I know I'll never be able to prove it. I just know I don't want you to work in my office." He waved a hand. "Go to your quarters. Your discharge papers will be there shortly."

Whittaker, not at all disappointed by this turn of events, saluted, turned, and walked out of the admiral's office, relieved that he would not spend more time in the cloak-and-dagger world of ONI and would soon return to civilian life.

As he walked out of the building, however, he heard someone say quietly, "Excuse me, Commander Whittaker. Do you have a moment?"

He turned to see a man so nondescript that he stuck out leaning against the wall.

"I might," he said guardedly. "May I ask what this is all about?"

"Certainly," the man replied as he pushed off the wall and walked towards him. "Let's walk as we talk, shall we?"

As they fell into step, the man continued. "We received Forbes' report, and were quite impressed."

"Who is 'we,' Mister…"

"Donovan—no relation to Wild Bill, I'm afraid. I'm with the OSS, although I'm afraid Truman's shutting us down."

"Then may I ask why you're here? I doubt you came all this way to just pat me on the back."

"Some of us in the OSS think that it's easy for people in our line of work to lose their way, which can lead to…problems, over the long-term. Men like Inglis don't think far enough ahead. Men like you, on the other hand—well, I can guess what happened in Shanghai, based on what I've heard. Probably something like what happened in Yugoslavia." He paused. "We need men who will look at the strings attached before they accept help."

"I hope you understand that I'm not interested in anything like what you're talking about right now," Whittaker said quietly.

"Of course, Commander. You want to go home, get your life back in order. But please, remember what I said. Inglis is right about one thing—there are still enemies to fight. Good day, and a safe journey home." Having said this, he turned and vanished into the people going through the crosswalk that Whittaker hadn't noticed until just now.

As he walked along, he thought about what Donovan had said. Maybe he could do something with that, he thought as he put his hand in his pocket and felt a card there that hadn't been there a moment before. He took it out, and saw that all that was there was a post office box address. He thought about it for a moment, and decided to keep it, just in case he took the man up on his offer.

But that was for later, and he smiled as he thought of the forests and cool green hills of North Carolina.

He was finally going home.

 **A/N: That's a wrap for this story. I hope you've enjoyed it, and maybe learned a little in the process. Feel free to leave a review saying what you liked or didn't like, and m** **y thanks to GJFH for reviewing this thing consistently.**

 **See y'all next time.**


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